There’s a new education program in town aimed at miniature-sized geniuses. Sturgeon Heights School is now offering a pre-kindergarten class modeled after an Italian educational philosophy that encourages “motivated” students to collaborate in their learning. I’m not sure what that means but it must be serious because to be accepted into the program, children as young as three must undergo an IQ test and an assessment by a psychologist.

Is this really necessary? Obviously many think so because they’re going to expand the program to another school. Why do you suppose parents would willingly subject their children to an IQ test and a psychological assessment at such an early age? It’s because they want their kids to excel. Do well in school and do well in life they suppose. Knowledge is power after all. Well that depends on what kind of knowledge you have. You may know the stats of every Oiler but does that really make you wise? Knowing, for example, that Taylor Hall has scored 17 goals in 54 NHL games isn’t going to help you administer first aid to someone who has stopped breathing. Likewise those pint-sized geniuses at Sturgeon Heights School may learn more history, more science, and more math than the average pre-schooler. They may even study how to administer CPR. But if that’s all they do, they won’t come close to surpassing our pre-schoolers here in wisdom. Real wisdom, as we’ll find out today, comes from the Spirit, it concentrates on Christ, and it culminates in glory.

Our society is not the only one that pines for wisdom. The ancient Greeks valued it as well. And yet when the Apostle Paul visited the church in the Greek city of Corinth he didn’t put on a dazzling display of intellectual acumen. You heard Paul confess in the Epistle Lesson last week: “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words” (1 Corinthians 2:4). But lest the Corinthians not take him seriously Paul went on to say in today’s text: “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:6, 7a).

Do Paul’s words sound a bit like a tabloid headline? “God’s Secrets Revealed!” But Paul isn’t a reporter for the National Enquirer who’s making stuff up to sell newspapers. He really did have a secret wisdom from God revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. Paul explained: “God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God... 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:10, 11, 13).